Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/304

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SPRING

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air Which dwells with all things fair, Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain, Is with us once again. / Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns Its fragrant lamps, and turns Into a royal court with green festoons The banks of dark lagoons. In the deep heart of every forest tree The blood is all aglee, And there s a look about the leafless bowers As if they dreamed of flowers. Yet still on every side we trace the hand Of Winter in the land, Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, Flushed by the season s dawn; Or where, like those strange semblances we find That age to childhood bind, The elm puts on, as if in Nature s scorn, The brown of Autumn corn. As yet the turf is dark, although you know That, not a span below, A thousand germs are groping through the gloom, And soon will burst their tomb.